Memory is at the same time our best friend and our worst enemy as musicians. It’s a tricky thing, because there are parts of memory we can control, and also parts that we can’t. Ever had it where you couldn’t remember something, but you could pull a quote from your favorite TV show at a moment’s notice? Sometimes it feels like your memory has everything you don’t need.
Well the best way for us to work with our memory is to practice and train it. Let’s say you are trying to memorize a tough line or melody, like “Confirmation,” or even a set of chord changes, and no matter what you do, it just doesn’t seem to stick. Maybe you learned it through sheet music or by ear, but you keep forgetting parts, and there are holes in your memory.
But what if we told you that forgetting is also your best friend when it comes to memorizing? That’s because it’s not necessarily the amount of times you play something that makes it stick. It’s really the amount of times you relearn something. So every time you forget something, it’s an opportunity to relearn that thing from a new angle.
Today we’ll look at one of Nathan’s favorite practice techniques to do when working on something difficult from memory. This practice technique, along with dozens of others can be found in our brand new course from Jazz Lesson Videos, called Better Practice Techniques for Rapid Growth. This course covers a range of topics like building an effective jazz practice routine, to the three types of working memory in jazz, as well as how to isolate each of them for maximum skill gain.
Types of memory
Let’s go ahead and get into one of the practice techniques from this course. Nathan calls this technique the “let it come to you” method.
If you want to see how Nathan works through this method, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, Better Practice Techniques for Rapid Growth.
Something to keep in mind is that there are three different kinds of working memory going on in our brain at all times. Our declarative memory—aka the theory brain, the auditory memory—what you hear in your head, and muscle memory—the motor skills controlling your fingers. When you’re really in the zone as a musician, your declarative memory is at a minimum, and your auditory and muscle memories take full control. But usually when we’re practicing the material that we’re working on, we’re not quite there yet. So in the meantime, declarative memory is our best friend.
Jumping into the “let it come to you” method, our declarative memory is our friend. We’ll take an excerpt, break it down into chunks, and you’ll practice each chunk without a metronome, and without forcing anything. The object here is to put yourself in a situation where you do not play the next note until it comes to you.
You have to be in a state of searching for this method to work. But it’s really fulfilling and works every time—it’s also very meditative. So let’s take the melody of “Confirmation” in F#, which is something Nathan had never worked on before.
To be able to use this practice technique, you do need to have a conceptual understanding of the tune, but you can’t have an external resource like sheet music. So if you don’t already have a conceptual understanding of the tune, you will want to learn the material first, then break it down and understand it.
Using this technique
So in this case, Nathan has played “Confirmation” in the original key many times. Learning it in F# means that Nathan doesn’t have an aural conception of what the first note is. So when we can’t rely on aural memory or muscle memory, we need to lean on the declarative memory.
Looking at the original, it starts with a 5, 3, 5 lick, and knowing our key of F#, that means we have C# to A# to C#.
Once we get those first intervals, our auditory memory starts to step in. You can hear some of the next intervals before understanding any of the theory. So when your auditory memory wants to take over—let it!
Once you’ve worked through an initial chunk, you can review it before focusing on the rest. Notice that we don’t focus on using a metronome or trying to play at any specific tempo. It’s just whatever speed our body wants to go. For this time being, you just want to develop a relationship with the piece coming from within you. After you feel more comfortable, you can address time and technique.
Once you’re feeling pretty solid with that and you can play it without your theory brain having to step in too much, you can move on to the next chunk.
Eventually you’ll hit a spot where there’s an interval you’re just not hearing in your head. So what do we do in this situation? We’ve got to tap into our other forms of memory. So let’s run it back in the original key and see what that interval is. Once you play that next interval or two, see where that pulls your auditory memory.
Something that is helpful is also to put it in context—once you correct a part that you couldn’t remember, run the whole thing through, so you can have the previous chunks merge together with the new one. When you’re memorizing, it can also be helpful to find these holes—they’re the weak spots. If the rest of it comes to you, then you don’t necessarily need to practice that, since it’s already there. Focus in on the weak spots, as well as keeping it in context.
Once you’ve finished your second chunk, run it back from the beginning, and see if there are any parts that you struggle to remember. If you feel good, then that means it’s time to move on to the next portion. The key here is to connect what’s in your brain with what isn’t yet.
Once you’ve worked through it and feel good with your practice session, step away from it, take a good rest and work on it again tomorrow. Often the best thing you can do for practicing is to get it right and then sleep on it.
Well that’s all for today, if you haven’t checked out our accompanying YouTube video, Better Practice Techniques for Rapid Growth, you’ll definitely want to do it so you can see Nathan walk you through this process. If you want to get even better with memorization techniques, also be sure to check out Efficient Practice Techniques for Faster Growth.
We’ll see you next time!
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